In the Corner of Her Eyes
by Rhya Storm
Summary: Something about Jack and Daniel always bugged Sam ... something that she could never quite make out ... oneshot, JD


Summary: Something about Jack and Daniel always bugged Sam – something she never could quite make out . . .

Warnings: Implied slash, only hinted at, really . . . don't like it? _Then why the hell are you in the Jack/Daniel pairings section!_! This is my first slashfic, actually, but these two are so _cute_ together ... flames shall be fed to my pet demon Shetan, so don't even bother.

Disclaimer: I dun own nuthin'. So don't sue me, I'm poor!

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Sam was the type of person who noticed everything. 

Well, maybe not _everything_, but more than the average person did.

So maybe that was why she seemed to be the only one who noticed that Jack and Daniel seemed to share an almost telepathic link.

For example, Jack would walk up to Daniel and say, calmly, "Daniel." Daniel would look up and reply with "Jack." And then the two of them would launch into a conversation seemingly out of the blue, as if they'd already discussed the topic to some length previously, when Sam knew for a fact that they hadn't.

Nobody else seemed to notice this. Maybe no one though it was at all significant, just not worth the brain cells required to retain the information. But Sam did. Maybe she was just paranoid, but there was something about those two. Yes, they _were_ best friends, yes they _did_ use to live together before Daniel got his apartment, yes they _did_ go through the original Stargate mission together . . . but still.

It was like something in the corner of her eye, always _just there_, but gone when she turned to look at it. It drove her crazy with frustration. She liked to _understand_ people, but she just couldn't get the seemingly mercurial friendship those two shared. Sometimes it was like they were merely co-workers, other times they were the best of friends, and sometimes, on rare occasions, they seemed to be more than even brothers. But those occasions were rare and hard to find, unless you knew what to look for.

And Sam knew what to look for.

After all, they _had_ been her teammates since the very beginning of the Stargate missions. She knew them _very_ well as people. It was simply the relationship between the two of them that she couldn't seem to fathom.

For example, that horrible mission on Apophis' ship . . . when they'd thought Daniel had been on the ship when it exploded. That had been awful. Jack had seemed distant and numb up to the point when they walked into the gate room – and discovered that Daniel had found a sarcophagus and had actually arrived _before_ them. Jack had strode right over to Daniel and given him a rib-crushing hug, ruffling the archeologist's hair fondly. Right there, in front of everyone. The incident had not repeated itself, but still.

Things like that.

Sometimes she considered asking Teal'c, but she always discarded the notion almost immediately. There was no denying that the Jaffa was a good and loyal friend, but somehow Sam felt that he couldn't offer much insight into this problem of hers, especially since it really seemed to be nothing at all at first glance.

On the second and third glances too, come to think of it. But Sam was naturally observant, and the second and third glances were off just enough to make her want to keep glancing.

This frustration, this mystery, always dancing in the corner of her eye, plagued her. She _wanted_ to understand. She was a scientist – it was natural. Her belief was that everything had an explanation, and she merely had to find it in order to understand.

So she wasn't immensely surprised when, as she was out walking on a balmy spring day, she saw Jack and Daniel, in their civvies of course, sitting together in a restaurant, chatting and grinning at each other. She paused, as if looking at the menu, as she watched Daniel fumble with his glasses, and Jack reached over and gently pulled them off. Daniel shot her CO an annoyed look, but it lacked any real venom behind it.

She hid a smile behind her hand as Jack laid the glasses down on the table. As Daniel reached over to take them back, Jack grabbed hold of his hands instead. The Colonel said something, and Daniel laughed. That surprised Sam. Daniel almost never laughed, not like he was now, at any rate – like he really meant it. She waited for Daniel to move his hands out of Jack's hold . . . but he never did. Instead, he leaned forwards to whisper something to Jack that made the older man grin his trademark 'infamous O'Neill look of mischief' that normally induced most people to make the proverbial run for cover. Not Daniel, though. It had never affected the archeologist, as if he knew Jack was merely teasing.

Jack absent-mindedly stroked the archeologist's hands. Daniel blushed but grinned, a huge smile that seemed to light up his entire face. Sam hadn't seen him that happy since Abydos . . . since before he'd lost Sha're.

Still smiling, Sam turned and walked away. She would look odd, standing there at the restaurant window . . . and besides, she didn't really want to interrupt Jack and Daniel just then.

"I've got a secret," she whispered to herself, grinning. _Now_ she knew what had been bugging her. Now she knew exactly what had been right in front of her all along – right in the corner of her eye.

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A/N: **((mimics flamers))**OMG, how could you, they're just friends, you're disgusting, Jack loves Sam, you're an insult to the Stargate fandom, blah blah blah ... Now that I've written all that, will ya'll just go away and find more constructive things t'do with your time? 

If you loved it, review. If you hated it cuz of the way I wrote it, review soI can make it better. If you hated it cuz of the pairing, don't bother.

**((shuts up but jabs finger insistantly at the review button))**


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